Howard Rumsey.... in the spotlight.A FOGGY NIGHT AT THE HERMOSA BEACH LIGHTHOUSEHans Koert

The kind of life I have is so much greater than the average person’s – I’m close to a creative thing that’s exciting and beautiful to behold.You get the feeling that if the whole world could experience it, there’d be a lot less trouble. I guess that’s why, after 30 years, I’m still so hung up on it ( Howard Rumsey ( in an 1979 interview with Leonard Feathers ( The Passion of Jazz Aides & Abettors) p. 167))

The Lighthouse Café - Hermosa Beach ( mid 1950s)

In the 1979 interview Howard Rumsey looks back to his 30th anniversary in the night club business. From 1949 up to 1972 he was the manager of the famous Lighthouse café in Hermosa Beach (California) and from 1972 up to 1979 he exploited the Concerts by the Sea, a club, in fact a mini-theater, on the pier in Rodondo Beach, California. Most of us will remember Howard Rumsey from the period that he was the director of his Lighthouse All-Stars and the leading source of inspiration for the west coast jazz scene during the 1950s and 1960s. I wrote about that in a previous blog titledLighthouse All-Stars

Howard Rumsey (1964)A few weeks ago I found at a second hand book market a pile of jazz LP’s and although it contained a lot of records, you could easily label as "rubbish", I found a 25 cm Contemporary LP titled Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars Vol. 5 In The Solo Spotlight ( Contemporary C2515 ). Both the cover as the record were in excellent condition, so …………. It made my day.The record contained six tracks, all with typical titles: Howard, Claude, Bud, Coop, S & B and Stan; a great challenge to find out what the meaning is for these rather weird titles. Well, I guess, most of you will understand how these titles were born, if you learn that the musicians of this all-star group were: Howard Rumsey, leader and bass player, Bud Shank, alto saxophone; Bob Cooper tenor saxophone; Stan Levey drums; Claude Williamson piano; Stu Williamson trumpet and Bob Enevoldsen valve trombone. Mind that the subtitle is In The Solo Spotlight, so I hope the penny has dropped. Thanks to the liner notes by Dick Williams, entertainment editor of the Los Angeles Mirror we know a bit more about the period this recording session was made: August 1954. Some 400 people were turned away at a little beachfront jazz bistro in Hermosa Beach called “The Lighthouse” last Saturday night. Several hundred others, who arrived early, managed to sandwich themselves inside. …… And lately, the nightly fog along the coast has been as thick as spider webs in a haunted house.What’s the lure? Last night I found out when I wandered down through the mists to the foot of the Hermosa pier. The Lighthouse is the home of an exceptional jazz group known as Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars. In the last six years they have built the place into the top citadel of jazz on the south coast.( Dick Williams – liner notes)

One For Buck: Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars in the Frankly Jazz TV-program ( early 1960s)

In the Leonard Feather interview Howard explains how it all started. Tiring of travelling ( Howard Rumsey toured a decade with Vido Musso and Stan Kenton), I decided to settle in Southern California.

One night he visited Hermosa Beach: I had some memories of the beach area, because they had always had ballrooms there before the war, and I had played at a dime-a-dance place there. But the ballrooms had disappeared and there was only one old resort with a Polynesian decor, with merchant seamen eating and drinking, known as The Lighthouse. No music at all, but at least it had a bandstand. The owner was John Levine and Howard suggested to organise some Sunday jam sessions. Kid, are you gonna try to tell me what to do with this place? Everybody else has. I talked some more,Howard continued, and finally he said Okay, let’s try it out. The next Sunday I put together a fine combo, opened the front door – there was no p.a. system, but we kept the music loud enough to roar out into the street – and within an hour Levine had more people in the room than he’d seen in a month. That was Sunday afternoon, May 29, 1949.( Howard Rumsey in Leonard Feather’s interview (1979))

The Lighthouse café (mid 1950s)

The earliest live recordings in the Lighthouse were in January 1952 with musicians like Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre; the first Lighthouse All-Stars recordings are dated half a year later.

I learned that in the discographies I have, the Lighthouse All-Stars recordings contained a lot of dubious information, even for my 25 cm LP, so I went through the points once again in a smalldiscography below this blog.

It took us two years to turn the club around from merchant seamen’s hangout to a jazz-conductive atmosphere. In the interview Howard tells about the guest musicians who played in the club, like Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, Wes Montgomery, The Three Sounds ( Gene Harris - Andrew Simpkins - Bill Dowdy ), Mose Allison, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan andCharlie Parker, who came in with a saxophone in a terrible condition. After an hour of frustration he went outside down the alley and heard someone playing a tenor sax in another club. Charlie asked if he could use the tenor and when the cat said yes, Charlie jumped on the stand and we all left the Lighthouse and listened to him while he blew for two fantastic hours. ( Howard Rumsey in Leonard Feather’s interview (1979)

After John Levine passed away in 1970, Howard helped Levine’s son for a few years in the Lighthouse, but in fact, the club was too small for concerts with big bands. I still dreamed about an ideal club. He found another venue, which he opened in 1972 and named it Concerts by the Sea.Howard Rumsey looked back to his 30th anniversary in the night club business. The most important thing I’ve learned is that the management or the owner must avoid, at all costs, interfering with the music. If you leave the artists alone to do their own thing, the sounds can come alive and express their natural strength, but if someone comes between the music and the audience, it withers and dies like a fragile flower.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A JAPANESE STRING BAND REVIVALTHE SWEET HOLLYWAIIANS: TICKLIN' THE STRINGSHans Koert

The Sweet Hollywaiianshave probably the best feel for this 20's music of any string band working today. They manage the rare feat of sounding relaxed even when their playing is hot, are top notch musician with tasteful arrangements and a full, rich, warm sound. Plus, they have a nice gamut of tunes, from King Nawahi to Gionvanni Vicari to Bobby Leecan. See them live, if you can, for an unforgettable experience. If you can't buy their Cds.( Terry Zwigoff, San Francisco) ( liner notes Ticklin' The Strings). These wise words by Terry Zwigoff are the first lines to find when you open the new album of the Japanese string band, The Sweet Hollywaiians, who released its new album Ticklin' The Strings a few weeks ago - a call to listen to the music, live if possible and to get yourself a copy of this album. Well - this message comes, in my opinion, too late in the day, as you've already obtained a copy when you read it, but ... , never mind, I fully agree, although I miss the words great fun. Terry Zwigoff is a well known American film maker, who produced the film Crumb, a multi-award winning documentary about Robert Crumb, maybe better known as R. Crumb: cartoonist-artist, record collector and leader of a string band called the Cheap Suit Serenaders. When Terry met Robert for the first time they learned that they shared a fascination for American roots music. Terry joined the Cheap Suit Serenaders and is to be heard on albums like Singing in the Bathtub and Chasin' Rainbows.

Playing this album by the Sweet Hollywaiians is really great fun. Love to share with you a film fragment, a bit unfocused to give it a 1920s patina, the tune Louisville Special, originally recorded by Earl McDonald and his Original Louisville Jug BandMarch 1927 for Columbia. The jug, used as a cheap bass instrument here, originally played by Earl McDonald himself, is, in this version, played by Tiny Mookie, leader of The Hot Society, and also responsible for the great cover design.

Isn't that great? This rather unknown tune, which belongs to the only known recording session by this, in the 1920s very popular, Original Louisville Jug Band, is seldom heard.

The four regular members of the Sweet Hollywaiians are Tomotaka Matsui, Nobumasa Takada, Takashi Nakayama and Kohichi Tsutsumishita all playing several string instruments. Two members of the Cheap Suit Serenaders, Robert Armstrong and Tony Marcus, play on a tune titled Nostalgia composed by the late great mandolin player Giovanni Vicari, who had Terry Zwigoff as one of his pupils. It learns that this world of "string bands" is a small one. On the record you'll find 15 tracks ( and a bonus track (!)), with tunes like the Joe Venuti-Eddie Lang composition Doin' Things; the title tune Ticklin' The Strings ( Tocando Las Cuerdas), a tune recorded in New York January 1930 by Bennie Nawahi, the King of the Uke, with his Hawaiians and Ten Tiny Toes - One Baby Nose (That's All I’m Lining For) recorded by Sol Hoopiiin October 1933. On the album also an own composition, composed by Matsui and Takada: Oh! Caroline.

Love to finish this review with a fragment of the recordings by the band of the tune My Girl from the South Sea Isles, another Bennie Nawahi recording from the late 1920s, now with his Hawaiian Beach Combers.

It won't be a surprise that I love to recommend you this album - a great document with seldom heard music by a band that knows how it sounded in the 1920s. It's a shame that they are only to be heard in Japan ( or at concerts at the US west coast with bands like Janet Klein and het Parlor Boys) and never in this part of the world. Wouldn't it be great if they could be scheduled for the 3rd Belgian Ukulele festival in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) May 2011 or the Dutch Breda Jazz Festival? I'm sure they will tear the place apart.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Chasing Sound

A couple of days ago the news headlines stated that Les Paul (b 1915) had passed away following complications of pneumonia. The leading news media, like New York Times a.o., had extensive and detailed obituaries published. Readers were left with the impression that a major figure in the guitar world had departed, references to Les Paul's achievements as an inventor of technical devices that today are common tools for the average guitarplayer as well as the professional musician were highlighted, of course. Further, his co-operation with the Gibson company and the invention and production of the Les Paul Special model electric guitar, made popular by contless guitar stars of rock'n'roll. Also Les Paul's career as a musician was mentioned, highlights being his trio recordings as a jazz guitar player in the 1930s and 1940's, his partnership with his second wife, Mary Ford, in the 1950s, a co-operation with Chet Atkins in the 1970s and later again his embracement of the pioneer generation of rock'n'roll guitar stars like Eric Clapton and Steve Miller a.o,, who have taken advantage of his technical inventions and knowhow that have had a major impact on the development of the modern electric guitar.

The world of entertainment has always swallowed up new gimmicks to get the attention of the public, but some times the presentation and publicity has forgotten to point out the actual background of a certain gimmick in favour of the sensation. The down-to-earth truth about the various inventions by Les Paul is stated straight forward, I think, in the title of the documentary about his career that was realesed a couple of years ago, 'Chasing Sound'. The development of a certain sound is crucial to be noticed as a musician among other musicians, and Les Paul has earlier stated that his various inventions were a natural part of his development as a creative musician - he had to invent things, because they were not around when needed to obtain a cetain result in the progress of a creative proces. Thus, for the creative artist tools and inventions are means, not ends. This point-of-view may often be forgotten when appraisals of a great inventor like Les Paul are published to celebrate a promoted and commercially successful tool like the Les Paul Special electric guitar. Anyway, here we'll concentrate on the musicianship of Les Paul, readers looking for further info on his career and technical inventions may have a look clicking here

Les Paul started his career already as a teenager playing guitar with country and Western groups, in the 1930s he had his breakthrough with his trio that made recordings 1936-39 and again, with new members, late 1940s, His trio-days repertoire was in the field of jazz and may be of special interest to readers of this blog. As a jazz guitar player Les Paul developed a style similar to the pioneer bop guitarists like Oscar Moore, i.e., and it is worth mentioning that some of his best work in this field are his recordings with JATP as a sideman of Nat King Cole, sitting in instead of Oscar Moore. However, Les Paul's own trio work is also worth mentioning, here's an entertaining film fragment of the trio's version of "Dark Eyes" including guest performance by comedian Sammy wolfe

In the 1950s Les Paul concentrated his career on the partnership with his wife, Mary Ford. Together they had success as recording artists of popular music with a special touch following Paul's invention of multi-track recording. Les Paul was the innovator of multi-track recording, where he would record at correct speed and accompany himself; he would then add double speed recording tracks of himself and combine them all; he also made multi-tracks of his wife Mary Ford singing along too. Here's a film fragment where the process is explained and shown with enjoyable examples included

The multi-track recording system invented by Les Paul had a major impact on the evolution of the record industry, the results achieved by Les Paul and Mary Ford were guidelines for both the industry and other artists as well. Here's an audio example of a popular multi-track recording, Les Paul & Mary Ford performing "Whispering"

In later days of his career Les Paul continued playing jazz guitar in a trio setting, here's an example from a concert performance of "Caravan"

One of Les Paul's last recorded public performances was made last year, to end this entry on a major figure in the development of modern guitar gimmicks enjoy his straight rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown" from a club date 2008